19. Sabrina

CHAPTER 19

SAbrINA

The text from Ebba is a surprise, but it’s a welcome one.

Ebba: Would you and Maddie like to meet me for breakfast?

Her next text includes a link to a restaurant.

“Maddie?”

Bent over the sink, she spits. When she straightens, she turns her toothpaste smile my way. “Yeah?”

“Would you want to go have breakfast with Ebba?”

“Sure.” With a shrug, she tugs the hand towel off its ring and wipes her mouth. “She’s nice. Is she your friend?”

I purse my lips and hum. “Not yet, but she could be.”

The sigh she lets out is pitiful. “It would be nice to have friends.”

Chest aching for her, I squeeze her shoulder. “You have friends.” It’s true, even if she doesn’t see it. She’s spent plenty of time with the other kids on the tour, and they all love her.

She shrugs. “I guess, but not a best friend. I’ve never even had a sleepover.”

I spray detangler into her sleep-ratted hair. “Never?” I ask as I gently guide the brush through her waves.

“Nope.”

I eye her in the mirror and give her a little smile. “Would you want to have a sleepover with me?”

Her lips turn down, and her brow furrows as she studies my reflection. “But we live together.”

I laugh, working even more carefully when I hit a particularly tangled knot. “That’s not what a sleepover is. We could get face masks and pizza, and we could watch girly movies. That kind of thing.”

Lips pressed together, she scrunches them to one side, as if in thought. “That would be fun.”

When I’m finished brushing out her hair, I shoo her back into her room to dress for the day. While she’s changing, I head back to my room to get ready, shooting off a response to Ebba as I pad down the hallway.

Thirty minutes later, Maddie and I are ready, and I’m just pulling up a ride share app when Ebba texts me again.

Ebba: Do you need a ride?

Me: Perfect timing. I was about to get an Uber.

Ebba: Uber is banned in Monte Carlo, just so you know.

Banned?

Me: Oh, wow. Really?

Ebba: Yeah, they can drop you off here, but no pickups.

Me: Interesting.

Ebba: Text me your address. I’ll be there in a few.

I do as she asks, and only a few minutes later, a sleek black car pulls up out front.

“That was fast.” I peer through the back door as Maddie gets buckled, then slide into the passenger seat.

“Elias’s house is just over there.” She points in the direction of several nearby homes, then turns around to give Maddie a smile. “Hey, Maddie Girl. How are you?”

“Hungry.”

“Good, because we’re going to the best café around.”

The next thing I know, the car is taking off at light-speed, and I’m gripping the dashboard. Beside me, Ebba laughs, apparently amused by my panic.

“Warn a girl next time.” With a hand to my chest, I gulp in oxygen, worried my lungs got left behind at Noah’s house.

Ebba only laughs harder. “Relax. Just wait until you encounter the F1 drivers are around here.”

“F1?”

She slams on the brakes just in time to avoid hitting the car in front of us. “Oh, sweetie.” She pats my knee. “You have so much to learn.”

Five minutes later she parks in front of a café. It’s adorable, not that I can appreciate it, since I’m still trying to locate my heart. I’m fairly positive it flew out of my chest on the way here.

We find a table on the small patio with bougainvillea climbing alongside the building and over the pergola above us. The setup is simple but gorgeous, and based on the look of wonderment on Maddie’s face, she agrees.

“Order whatever you want.” Ebba sets her purse in her lap. “My treat.”

After a cursory look at the menu, I realize every word is in French, so I snap it shut and set it in front of me. “You can order for me.”

“Are you sure?” She pushes her sunglasses into her hair like she needs to see me better in order to be certain.

“Yeah, I have no idea what any of this is.”

With a nod, she puts her glasses back in place, and a slow smile creeps across her mouth. “I’ll take care of you.”

I’m not sure whether I should be grateful or mildly terrified.

Maddie, the world traveler that she is, straightens beside me. “I won’t need help.”

The smile Ebba gives her is less calculating. Then she turns back to me. “Do you like coffee?”

“Yeah.”

“Like coffee- coffee. Not the mostly milk stuff people claim is coffee.”

I purse my lips and hum. “I’m of the more-milk, less-coffee variety.”

“All right.” She taps her light pink painted nails on the table. “I’ll get one for you to try anyway.”

When our server appears, Ebba orders for the two of us, then Maddie very eloquently orders for herself in French .

My eyes practically bug out of my head, and when my charge is finished speaking, I grasp her wrist. “You speak French?”

A frown mars her sweet face. “And Spanish.”

“How did I not know this?” I mutter. She’s never brought it up, and apparently her dad didn’t think to mention to me that his little girl is a multi-lingual child prodigy.

Maddie picks up her water glass. “You never asked.”

“Do you speak anything else?”

She looks down at her lap. “I wanted to learn Italian too, but when Mom got sick…” She gives a shrug.

That ache in my chest is back. The one that hits me every time this little girl’s sadness surfaces. I want to scoop her up and hold her, but before I can, she straightens and changes the subject.

I tried to learn Spanish in high school, but it was harder than I thought it would be, and I eventually gave up. It’s one of a very few things I’ve ever given up on like that. As a kid, I did everything I could to succeed, hoping that if I was smart enough, accomplished enough, maybe my parents would love me.

If she still wants to learn, maybe Maddie and I could learn Italian together. I don’t want to push it if it would make her sad, but it wouldn’t hurt to at least broach the topic.

Ebba props one elbow on the table and rests her chin in her palm. “As cliché as it sounds, how have you been?”

I huff a laugh. “Pretty good. From what I’ve gleaned, life is about to get more hectic now that we’ll be in Europe for a while. Do you always travel with Elias?”

She straightens, eyes bright. “Yes. I’m a social media influencer, so I post about my travels. About fashion and makeup tutorials. That kind of thing.”

“Oh, wow. That’s neat.” And so vastly different from the path I’ve chosen in life. I can’t even imagine what it must be to live the way she does.

She laughs at my response. “You sound like my parents. It’s not a traditional career choice, but I enjoy it.”

“Oh, no—it’s not…” I blow out a breath. “It’s fascinating, really?—”

She waves me off. “I get it. I’m not offended.”

With a sigh, I slouch, eager to find a topic that won’t make me put my foot in my mouth. “Whimsy couldn’t come today?”

“No.”

The server sets our coffees in front of us, and we both give him grateful smiles.

“My brother has her running around like a chicken with her head cut off. Poor girl. I love my brother, but he’s a pain in the ass to work with.” The grin she wears is half annoyance, half affection. “I don’t know how she deals with him. She swears she loves it, but the twenty-four seven stressed-out look on her face says otherwise.” She picks up her tiny cup of coffee and brings it to her lips. After a small sip, she closes her eyes and moans. “Elias would be lost without her. He gets so worked up over the dumbest things. Like suddenly he’ll claim his socks don’t feel right and he has to have new socks right that second.”

“Wow,” I laugh, bringing the cup to my lips. “He sounds like a diva.”

Ebba’s responding laugh is tinkling, like the sound of bells. I’m pretty sure when I laugh, I sound more like a donkey about to keel over.

“Oh, he totally is.”

“Can I have a coffee?”

Turning to Maddie, I rest my hand on top of hers and give her a sympathetic smile. “The last thing I need is for you to ingest caffeine and bounce off the walls more than usual.”

She giggles. The girl knows I’m right.

“But you can have a sip.” I extend my cup to her.

“Thank you.” She takes a tiny sip, her face pulling into one of pure disgust, just like I figured it would. “That’s nasty. Why do you guys drink that?”

Ebba lifts her cup like she’s making a toast. “To survive.”

“Bleh.” Maddie sticks her tongue out. “I don’t want to be an adult.”

“Enjoy being a kid as long as you can. Trust me,” Ebba tells her.

Breakfast is delicious, and when Ebba drops us off at Noah’s house, she promises to take us to another of her favorite restaurants soon.

Right away, Maddie and I get her schoolwork started. She’s fairly independent, really only asking for my help when she’s struggling with something. It’s strange for me, as a teacher, to not be putting together lesson plans to teach these things to her, instead relying on reading and having discussions. Though I suppose I haven’t been actually teaching since I graduated, so it shouldn’t feel that odd.

The thought brings with it reminders of the mountain of school debt looming over me. It’s laughable, how I poured all that money and time into an education, yet I can’t even secure a job in my field. At least this gig means I can put a big dent in what I owe.

A couple of hours later, once school is finished for the day, we lie out in the back garden, each with our own book.

That’s where Noah finds us, his hair damp, making it nearly black. He looms over us, casting a shadow, his hands on his narrow hips and his lips curled in amusement.

“I wondered where you two were.”

Maddie slams her book closed, jumps to her feet, and throws her arms around his middle. “Daddy!”

His warm chuckle filters through the evening air as he strokes her soft brown hair.

“I didn’t know you were home.”

I sit up carefully, surprised to find the sun so low in the sky.

“Are you hungry? I started dinner.”

She scoops up her blanket and book, then wanders toward the back door. “What are you making?”

With a smile, Noah follows. “Just some pasta. Nothing fancy.”

Nothing fancy turns out to be homemade fettucine Alfredo. While Maddie and I were absorbed in our books on the back lawn, he was in here making pasta from scratch and hanging the strands on every available surface. Fresh sauce simmers on the stove, and the smell of garlic permeates the air.

I’m embarrassed to admit even to myself that I’d give almost anything to have seen that man kneading dough.

“All that’s left to do is cook the pasta and put the garlic bread in the oven. Wash your hands, Maddie, then you can help.”

“You can help too, if you want,” Noah says as Maddie scurries to the sink.

“Sure.”

Once I’ve washed up, he puts me to work cutting up a fresh baguette and spreading a garlic and herb butter on it before popping it into the oven.

When we sit at the kitchen table, the warm glow of the light over the island illuminates the space. Noah lit a few candles, as well, making the room feel warm and inviting.

My chest tightens as we sit there together, eating the delicious meal.

As a girl, this was all I wanted. A family . Noah and Maddie aren’t my family, but for a moment I let myself pretend. And for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel so alone.

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